I Sing a New Song
The Epic Journey of a Traveling
Musician in the Middle Ages
A Collaboration with Trobár
In addition to our three Chicagoland performance,
this program will also be performed in Cleveland, OH.
Thursday, February 29 | 7:00 pm
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church
2747 Fairmount Blvd., Cleveland Heights
Friday, March 1 | 7:30 pm | Hyde Park
Bond Chapel (University of Chicago)
1025 E 58th St., Chicago
Buy Hyde Park Tickets
Saturday, March 2 | 7:30 pm | Downtown
Ganz Hall (Roosevelt University)
430 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago
Buy Downtown Tickets
Sunday, March 3 | 4:00 pm | Evanston
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church
939 Hinman Ave, Evanston
Buy Evanston Tickets
The Newberry Consort presents a program of music that would have been performed by musicians who undertook the perilous journeys to Europe’s famous menestrel schools in the Middle Ages. The word menestrel, literally “minstrel,” refers to the secular musicians who were active in Europe between 1250 and 1500. I Sing a New Song tells the story of a menestrel and her companions as they journey from Paris to a menestrel school in Brussels. These schools were international conventions where musicians gathered to buy instruments, network, compete for prizes, and learn new songs to take back to their home cities. France, Germany, and the Low Countries were popular locations for menestrel schools, though participating musicians came from around Europe, sometimes traveling hundreds of miles through challenging territory.
For this program, we are pleased to collaborate with Cleveland-based Medieval ensemble Trobár, and will be joined by historical keyboard specialist Gabe Smallwood, who will play organetto. Two shawms and a medieval slide trumpet join the cast for rollicking dances and ornamented song melodies. While most of the music at menestrel schools was learned by ear, some of it was later compiled into collections by Liebhard Eghenvelder, Judocus de Windsheim (the Lochamer Liederbuch), and other scribes. French musicians were also particularly well-represented, and the program will include music by composers such as Guillaume de Machaut and Pierre des Molins. The music will be brought to life with vivid art and text curated by musicologist and graphic designer Shawn Keener.
Trobár is a small medieval band of voices and instruments led by co-directors Allison Monroe (strings, voice) and Elena Mullins Bailey (voice, harp). The word trobar, meaning “to find, to create, to compose” in the language Occitan, encapsulates the spirit of discovery and invention that we bring to the musical texts of the Middle Ages. We welcome guest artists into our musical explorations, frequently including Karin Weston (voice, flute; founding member), Allen Otte (percussion), Rosemary Heredos (voice, chant specialist), Nathan Dougherty (voice), Nadia Tarnawsky (voice), Sian Ricketts (winds, voice), and Debra Nagy (winds, voice), among others.
Since our founding in 2017, Trobár has created twelve original programs for our Cleveland audiences. Several of these programs have been featured on Early Music America’s 2020 Emerging Artists Showcase, Les Délices’ SalonEra, GEMS (NYC), the Catacoustic Consort (Cincinnati) series, Early Music at the Barn in Chicagoland, and in a live-televised concert at St. James Cathedral Basilica (Brooklyn).
Education is central to Trobár’s mission. We host a free podcast called Trobár Talks, as well as MuckAbouts, a series of public events oriented around history and the arts, experiential learning, and community building. We have held residencies at the University of Louisville and Purdue University Fort Wayne. A mini-grant from Early Music America (2022) helped us launch our show The Donkey Prince, an elementary-age introduction to medieval music and storytelling. We also taught weekly historical dance classes with live music for elementary school students at Garden Christian Academy during the 2022-23 season.
Gabriel Smallwood • Organetto